SerpApi.Org
PlayStation's decision to end the physical production of discs in 2028 was an unpopular one. Since its announcement on July 1, long-time PlayStation fans and former Sony bosses have expressed their deep unhappiness with the move. This has led to thousands upon thousands of social media comments, protests, petitions, new bill proposals, and class-action lawsuits. Sony has yet to say anything more, sweeping it under the rug and further deepening the rift with its audience.
The main reason for the decision was pretty evident: money. However, this has now been backed up by some eye-opening figures, with an industry analyst revealing only seven games have sold more than 100,000 physical units on PlayStation in the US this year.
PlayStation's Struggling Physical Sales Likely A Key Factor In Ceasing Disc Production
Over the last few years, there has been a huge shift to digital games. While this raises questions about digital ownership and price monopolies, audiences have spoken, and the ease with which they can download digital titles seems to outweigh anything else.
Numbers had been bandied about, suggesting that as much as 85% of PlayStation's software sales were digital; however, this figure proved misleading, given the number of digital-only games on the PlayStation Store.
Although those numbers were a little misleading, the extent of Sony's declining physical PlayStation sales has been outlined, with industry analyst Mat Piscatella revealing players are moving to digital.
"2 PlayStation video games sold more than 10k physical units in the US during week ending July 11, 2026," he said on Bluesky using Circana data in response to a Kotaku article about PlayStation fan protests hitting the new Wolverine trailer. "7 have sold more than 100k physical units year-to-date." Piscatella's statement covers all games, all publications, and all PlayStation platforms.
It's a damning indictment of the state of physical media in video games.
Talking with your wallets and purchasing physical games may be the only way to go, but even that may be too late. Piscatella followed up his post by saying, "Commenting is cool, use your voice and all that. But commenting is cheap, idk," and it all feels like this digital future is now unstoppable.
